Automotive faux pas?

[Cavcraft]

I'm talking crimes against automotive fashion, daft ideas that seemed good at the time etc.

 

Mine were: Hillman Hunter estate (my first car) that was pretty rough bodywork wise. Cue one tin of white Dulux house paint and a roller and I had a half white, half blue shit heap with ripples in the paint. Not content with that I then scored a load of draylon for the interior and glued it everywhere possible. Thought it looked the biz but my dad said (wisely, with hindsight) it looked like a mobile brothel.

 

Then a Marina (God how I learnt to hate those bastard things) that I thrashed mercilessly) and it started to get a bit loud. Thinking it was the exhaust (and not bothering to have done silly things like check the oil) I hammered the arse out of it thinking it sounded like a rally car. Only it wasn't the exhaust, it was the engine. And it blew up in spectacular fashion.

 

Put paraffin instead of engine oil into a C90 which unsurprisingly wrecked the engine after a 3.00am ride round a field behind an ex-girlfriend's house just to annoyer he and her family.

 

Made my own 'V' grille for a Mk3 Cavalier. It looked stupendously wank and when I parked up outside a Vauxhall dealer to go and get some parts for it all the mechanics came out and laughed at me.

 

So how/where did you make a complete cock of yourself, let's hear it?

[Alexg]

Made my own 'V' grille for a Mk3 Cavalier. It looked stupendously wank and when I parked up outside a Vauxhall dealer to go and get some parts for it all the mechanics came out and laughed at me.

 

[Station]

Made my own 'V' grille for a Mk3 Cavalier. It looked stupendously wank and when I parked up outside a Vauxhall dealer to go and get some parts for it all the mechanics came out and laughed at me.

I saw a Cav with one of those, I thought it was a late model edition.

 

Driving around in a black mk3 Astra LSi with a white Astra GSi grille on it. I thought people might've thought it was maybe a 'Q car' GSi, and not a rusting, tired, tweed interior'd shopping cart.

 

On the same car. Found a piece of aluminium air conditioning piping (about two inches wide), and immediately jammed it onto my rusted old backbox. I thought the noisey, holey backbox went well with my shiny, new exhaust pipe. Imagine my surprise when I watched the whole thing disintigrate, cartwheeling in a cacophony of rusted tubing in my rear view mirror down the M53.

 

18 years old, and wheelspinning and flooring it from a busy summer's evening outside The Tap pub in Eastham in a 1.1 Escort mk2 with no top on the carb and a long dead exhaust and 'flying' up the road. Half way up I looked in the rear view mirror to bask in the admiration and evny and everyone was pointing and laughing at me.

 

Oh, the shame.

[Jack_Harpers_Teeth]

Not me, but a mate back in the 80's (I used to have friends back then you see ).

 

He always had one of those ex Post Office Marina vans, one of 'em was getting a bit noisy in the exhaust dept so he bought from the petrol station some of that crap that you mix together into a ball and then stuff it into the hole on the silencer, take it for a ride around the block to harden it and you've saved yourself the cost of a whole new exhaust system (yeah right! ).

 

Went for a blast around the block.

 

Stopped off to buy some fags, noticed van was sounding "throaty" again so a quick look underneath to see that the "fix" had disappeared and the hole was back (as if it had ever gone away). Much swearing followed...

 

... but then he noticed the ball of putty lying on the floor underneath the car, quickly he grabbed it, went to stuff it back in the hole only to discover he actually a piece of dog shit in his hand!!!

 

How I laughed at the poor sod!

[Station]

HAHAHA wasn't expecting that!

[Alexg]

Haha

[Rusty Pelican]

I didnt spray it this colour but when I got this from the scrappys for £50 some twat before had sprayed it in this colour scheme , really bright blue with a white roof , Never paint anything this high with a lighter coloured roof , looks totally shit , went to cheddar gorge in it whereapon a couple of kids banged on the window and asked if i had any 99s for sale

Taken early 92

 

[Alexg]

I was working as a salesman at a Vauxhall dealer when I bought my first Metro GTI. I cost £500, I had it lowered, drilled the airbox and I loved it. The dealer has a long forecourt that stretched along the side of the straight road. Across the road were all our cars that we parked up. As the boss would be annoyed that I drove my own car rather than the company demo I parked 200 yards at top of the road hoping he would not notice.

 

Anyway, it reached closing time and all the saleman were leaving and crossing the road to their company cars, then off to the pub. I ran up the road, jumped in the GTi, accelerated off at speed pulling out infront of some grumpy bloke in a Volvo who wasnt best pleased. As I approached the dealer I saw a my mate Gav' look up at me whist openning the door to his car, so I thought I would show off

 

I yanked up the handbrake and stuck my arse out, which looked good... for about 1 second. I over corrected sending my car left, the right, then left before spinning uncontrollably up the curb, smashing off my front splitter. I finished about two foot from the row of cars on the forecourt facing the annoyed Volvo driver who slowed down to a snails pace and just stared at me. My mate across the road was laughing his nut off. In a panic I slammed it in first an belted it off up the road in the direction I just come from dragging my splitter along the floor

[Tayne]

.

[Station]

My dad had one of these:

 

 

In red, in about 1989. Immediately, we started calling it the Patmobile because it looked like this:

 

 

My mum even bought him a little black plush cat to put in the window (which he still has!). Basically, mum and dad in the front, me and two brothers in the back, the lucky ones got to sit on the wheelwells!

We went out for a day to Southport and the day was closing, we were sat on the beach, and a load of boy racers came along and were doing donuts in the sand in their XR3's etc. I don't know what made my dad do it, but he started the little rusted faded red postman pat mobile and joined in. With me and my two brothers flying round in the back trying to cling by a finger to the metal frame, my mum screaming to stop, and my dad eagerly trying to get the back end out up and down the beach. Quite amusing looking back, but embarressing at the time.

[Akron]

Station that big back memories of my Dad with a Skoda Favorit pickup and truckman top, me and my sister in the back sat on the wheel boxes or if it was a long trip like Oxford to Scotland the luxury of a bean bag.

[gearoil]

Bought a Pug 306 sedan, with one of those keypad immobiliser thingys.

 

In 3 months of owning it, it started and drove for one whole day....

[AXrescuer]

Fell off my old CB750F2 at walking pace in front of a group of school girls at a mini-roundabout.

This bike was a real heavy fucker so I couldn't pick it up on my own. Tried to pull it up via the handlebars but the grip came off in my hand and the resulting backward momentum sent me sprawling arsefirst onto the kerb!

 

Queue mocking laughs all round, including the previously unnoticed group of people waiting for a bus!

[autofive]

i had to move a table top fruit machine (take it now or it goes to the tip) i loaded it into the back of an se6a scimitar - hatch open, strapped the fruit machine to the seat belt mounts and slowly drove home

 

while driving down a bank at about 25 mph, a fiesta full of loons overtook me. You cant have minor fords overtaking a scimitar - once the festa pulled in front of me - i pulled out and punched the throttle, kickdown engaged, the fruit machine broke loose and shot out the back.

 

Now, i have to slow down ( im still on the wrong side of the road at this point) to retrieve the fruit machine, which is now sliding down the kerb/gutter at a fairly fast rate towards the back of the scimitar - i cant get out of the way. as there is now traffic approaching up the hill. All i can do is wait for the impact - the metal cased fruit machine whacks the O/S exhaust square on the end of the pipe

 

next morning i have a blowing exhaust, cracked the cast iron manifold

 

the fruit machine was fine

[FredTransit]

Autofive that's classic, made me chuckle....

[ashmicro]

HA HA! I fell off my CB400 SuperNightmare at about 3 mph in front of about 30 schoolgirls, and I couldn't lift that either.

 

Not me, but a local lad. We used to all congregate in our cars/on motorbikes down at the big car park at the castle. I got out of my car to get into a mates motor, and we were just sitting chatting. Said local lad came into the carpark in his mint RWD Starlet, which had HUGE Carlos Fandango alloys on it. mr Toyota decides to throw the handbrake on, the car went sideways, and one of these ridiculous wheels caught on a drain grill, flipping the car onto its roof. We all ran over and got him out, righted the car, I put the back box back on its rubbers. The Police came in the far entrance of the carpark just as the Starlet was being driven out the other one!

[Pete-M]

 

Peugeot 205 GTi clutch went wonky. Twas my mates car and we wanted to go and

spectate at the RAC rally at the weekend. This being the case we set upon an

evening of Pug fettlage fuelled with lager, naturally. Few hours - and too

many lagers - later we've got the gearbox out. Upon inspection we noticed

there's a little alloy stump that the clutch release arm pivots on, and that

it had parted company from the bellhousing.

After a couple more cans and a bout of head scratching we decided that if

the Pug was going to live in time for the best spectator stages we'd better

try to "temporarily repair"[1] it, after all, you can drive with a broken

clutch cable as long as you can keep the thing rolling and we really wanted

to get upto Kielder forest pretty soon.

We tried welding it, but that wasn't going to happen - especially with the

two of us being crap welders. Time for a few cans, and another ferret round

the workshop. Thought about drilling a hole in the bellhousing and shoving a

big bolt through, but couldn't find any decent drill bits.

 

We did find chemical metal though..

 

Couple of hours later the Pug is back together and the clutch feels fine,

all the gears engage, no clutch slip, so we lock the car up, and go home for

some kip.

 

4.30 am We return after a good few hours kip. Me in my Escort RS2000, and my

mate in the Pug.

 

4:35 am We're hooning it down the local lanes heading out towards the

motorway

 

4:36 am The Pug decides to disengage 3rd gear at around 90 mph on a tightish

left hander. It oversteered violently, left the road, caught the kerb,

flipped up into the air, caught a telegraph pole, snapped the telegraph pole

and barrel rolled into a field.

 

Never use chemical metal on Peugeot gearboxes.

 

[1] Botch.

[Alexg]

ok, you win

[Rusty Pelican]

I Deffo wont Pete

[Lord Sterling]

Bloody 'ell! What happend to your mate. Was he Ok?

[Pete-M]

Bloody 'ell! What happend to your mate. Was he Ok?

Oh yeah, he was right as rain. Not a mark on him. His first words upon stumbling from the wreckage were.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

......" And for my next trick! "

 

If memory serves me right he spent a night in hospital, but was fine.

[Station]

You made the rally though?

 

Threw a bit of money at the car a couple of years ago, like big service bits, all the bushes, suspension, mounts, ball joints, brakes, etc and new Toyo tyres which I am told were soft compound, but just for road use. The car felt a million zillion times better after this was all done, I couldn't believe the difference. It wasn't until I was passing with the wheel pointing outwards, I saw this - a week worth of driving to Warrington and back!

 

 

Also put a brake pad on wrong way back to front. I noticed this after about 20 miles of driving, thanks to screeching and no brakes.

 

[Minimad5]

Shit dave

 

Did you drive like a mad man ?

 

Glad you checked that brake pad, could of ended badly